"The ugly truth" : Cahus’ dream revisited

The aim of this paper is to propose an analysis of the Cahus’ Dream, a well known episode of the Perlesvaus, Arthurian romance from the 13th century, within the context of the medieval dream theories. Inspired mostly by Macrobius’ Commentary on the Dream of Scipio – fo cusing on the divinatory (or deceptive/ illusory) role of dreams – as well as by Tertullian’s and Augustine’s Christian refl ections on the relations between the soul and the sleeping body, these theories permit to shed a new light on the oneiric adventure of the squire. In fact, the author furnishes numerous clues which make it look as an insomnium or fantasma: a false, illusory dream, deprived of any deeper signifi cation. Thus, unable of uncovering some hidden, symbolic meaning, the mirage paradoxically turns out to be a material, "ugly", as the text has it, truth, blurring the border between dream and reality in a most confusing way, and setting the specific Perlesvaus tone from the very beginning of the romance.